Michelle LaRue | |
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| Nationality | American |
| Scientific career | |
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| Institutions | University of Canterbury |
Michelle La Rue is a conservation biologist and ecologist based at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. [1]
Her research focuses on using satellite imagery to understand polar animals, including emperor penguins and crabeater seals. [2] [3] [4] [5] She has visited Antarctica at least six times. [6] [7] [8]
LaRue started her scientific career at Minnesota State University, Mankato where she completed a Bachelor of Science majoring in ecology. This involved researching the food habits of hoary bats by dissecting and identifying the remains of insects in their guano. She also completed modelling of white-tail deer populations using distance sampling techniques. [6] [7]
She went on to gain a Master's degree in Zoology at the Southern Illinois University Carbondale where she studied the habitat and dispersal of cougars. [6]
LaRue has a doctorate in Conservation Biology from the University of Minnesota. This saw her use high-resolution satellite imagery to study the population dynamics, biogeography, and threats to polar animals. [8]
In 2022 LaRue received a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship to study populations of crabeater seals, Weddell seals, emperor penguins, and Adélie penguins in Antarctica. [9]
The Adélie penguin is a species of penguin common along the entire coast of the Antarctic continent, which is the only place where it is found. It is the most widespread penguin species, and, along with the emperor penguin, is the most southerly distributed of all penguins. It is named after Adélie Land, in turn, named for Adèle Dumont d'Urville, who was married to French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville, who first discovered this penguin in 1840. Adélie penguins obtain their food by both predation and foraging, with a diet of mainly krill and fish.
The emperor penguin is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching 100 cm (39 in) in length and weighing from 22 to 45 kg. Feathers of the head and back are black and sharply delineated from the white belly, pale-yellow breast and bright-yellow ear patches.
The chinstrap penguin is a species of penguin that inhabits a variety of islands and shores in the Southern Pacific and the Antarctic Oceans. Its name stems from the narrow black band under its head, which makes it appear as if it were wearing a black helmet, making it easy to identify. Other common names include ringed penguin, bearded penguin, and stonecracker penguin, due to its loud, harsh call.
The crabeater seal, also known as the krill-eater seal, is a true seal with a circumpolar distribution around the coast of Antarctica. They are medium- to large-sized, relatively slender and pale-colored, found primarily on the free-floating pack ice that extends seasonally out from the Antarctic coast, which they use as a platform for resting, mating, social aggregation and accessing their prey. They are by far the most abundant seal species in the world. While population estimates are uncertain, there are at least 7 million and possibly as many as 75 million individuals. This success of this species is due to its specialized predation on the abundant Antarctic krill of the Southern Ocean, for which it has uniquely adapted, sieve-like tooth structure. Indeed, its scientific name, translated as "lobe-toothed (lobodon) crab eater (carcinophaga)", refers specifically to the finely lobed teeth adapted to filtering their small crustacean prey. Despite its common name, crabeater seals do not eat crabs. As well as being an important krill predator, the crabeater seal's pups are an important component of the diet of leopard seals (H. leptonyx). They are the only member of the genus Lobodon.
The leopard seal, also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic. Its only natural predator is the orca. It feeds on a wide range of prey including cephalopods, other pinnipeds, krill, fish, and birds, particularly penguins. It is the only species in the genus Hydrurga. Its closest relatives are the Ross seal, the crabeater seal and the Weddell seal, which together are known as the tribe of Lobodontini seals. The name hydrurga means "water worker" and leptonyx is the Greek for "thin-clawed".
The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (CCAS) is part of the Antarctic Treaty System. It was signed at the conclusion of a multilateral conference in London on February 11, 1972.
The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctica.
The Antarctic realm is one of eight terrestrial biogeographic realms. The ecosystem includes Antarctica and several island groups in the southern Atlantic and Indian oceans. The continent of Antarctica is so cold that it has supported only 2 vascular plants for millions of years, and its flora presently consists of around 250 lichens, 100 mosses, 25–30 liverworts, and around 700 terrestrial and aquatic algal species, which live on the areas of exposed rock and soil around the shore of the continent. Antarctica's two flowering plant species, the Antarctic hair grass and Antarctic pearlwort, are found on the northern and western parts of the Antarctic Peninsula. Antarctica is also home to a diversity of animal life, including penguins, seals, and whales.
The Weddell seal is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. The Weddell seal was discovered and named in the 1820s during expeditions led by British sealing captain James Weddell to the area of the Southern Ocean now known as the Weddell Sea. The life history of this species is well documented since it occupies fast ice environments close to the Antarctic continent and often adjacent to Antarctic bases. It is the only species in the genus Leptonychotes.
Admiralty Bay is an irregular bay, 8 km (5 mi) wide at its entrance between Demay Point and Martins Head, indenting the southern coast of King George Island for 16 km (10 mi), in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. The name appears on a map of 1822 by Captain George Powell, a British sailor, and is now established in international usage. The Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station is situated on the bay, as is the Comandante Ferraz Brazilian Antarctic Base. It has been designated an Antarctic Specially Managed Area.
The Ross seal is a true seal with a range confined entirely to the pack ice of Antarctica. It is the only species of the genus Ommatophoca. First described during the Ross expedition in 1841, it is the smallest, least abundant and least well known of the Antarctic pinnipeds. Its distinctive features include disproportionately large eyes, whence its scientific name, and complex, trilling and siren-like vocalizations. Ross seals are brachycephalic, as they have a short broad muzzle and have shorter fur than any other seal.
Ian Grote Stirling is a research scientist emeritus with Environment and Climate Change Canada and an adjunct professor in the University of Alberta Department of Biological Sciences. His research has focused mostly on Arctic and Antarctic zoology and ecology, and he is one of the world's top authorities on polar bears. Stirling has written five books and more than 150 articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He has written and spoken extensively about the danger posed to polar bears by global warming.
Queen Maud Land is a roughly 2.7-million-square-kilometre (1.0-million-square-mile) region of Antarctica claimed by Norway as a dependent territory. It borders the claimed British Antarctic Territory 20° west and the Australian Antarctic Territory 45° east. In addition, a small unclaimed area from 1939 was annexed in June 2015. Positioned in East Antarctica, it makes out about one-fifth of the continent, and is named after the Norwegian Queen Maud (1869–1938).
Kloa Point is a prominent coastal point projecting from the east side of Edward VIII Plateau, 5.6 kilometres (3 nmi) north of Cape Gotley, Antarctica. It was mapped by Norwegian cartographers from aerial photographs taken by the Lars Christensen Expedition, 1936–37, and called by them Kloa ('claw').
Bernard Stonehouse was a British scientist who specialised in animal behaviour, polar research and popular science. In 1953 he received the Polar Medal.
The wildlife of Antarctica are extremophiles, having adapted to the dryness, low temperatures, and high exposure common in Antarctica. The extreme weather of the interior contrasts to the relatively mild conditions on the Antarctic Peninsula and the subantarctic islands, which have warmer temperatures and more liquid water. Much of the ocean around the mainland is covered by sea ice. The oceans themselves are a more stable environment for life, both in the water column and on the seabed.
Barbara Wienecke is a senior research scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division. She is a seabird ecologist who uses satellite tracking to investigate seabird population dynamics and ecology. Wienecke has played a key role in enhancing the quality of, and overseeing the implementation of, a number of Antarctic Specially Protected Area management plans for wildlife concentrations in East Antarctica.
William Joseph Lambart Sladen MBE was a Welsh American naturalist who was an Antarctic explorer and a specialist on polar bird life. He was professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. He researched the mating of Antarctic birds and received the Polar Medal. Two mountains on the continent, Mount Sladen and Sladen Summit, are named in his honour. His discovery in the 1960s that DDT residues could be found in adelie penguins contributed to the banning of DDT in the U.S.
Claire Lucille Parkinson is an American Earth scientist and climatologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Jean Pennycook is an American educator and zoologist specializing in Antarctic Adélie penguins. She is based in Cape Royds, an Antarctic Specially Protected Area which hosts a stable population of Adélie penguins.
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